Quick Takes (11)

Can't seem to find anything to write about lately, so I figured I'd get my quick takes done early for a change and actually link 'em up with Jen and all the Friday faithful.

1. Despite the fact that I've already done the whole graduation thing, I find myself feeling oddly nostalgic and senior-y this time of year. I blame it on the fact that some of my closest friends are a couple years younger so they're in the midst of finishing up school right now. It's not fun to think about all of us being in different cities next year with completely different schedules. It was hard enough coordinating schedules this year when they were all still in school. It's definitely going to take a lot more intentional acts, like scheduling times to talk and finding times to visit.

2. In an attempt to become a better friend, I've been trying to spend less time "liking" things on Facebook and more time emailing/texting/calling my friends. As much as I enjoy being able to keep up with the people I care about via their status updates and pictures, I started to notice I was using it as an excuse for not actually communicating. I'd see pictures of their vacations or read their statuses about plans after graduation and think I knew what was going on in their lives. And I guess in a way I did...but there's so much more to our lives than what we post on Facebook. I wanted more than that false sense of connection, so I cut my brain's vacation short and made plans to reconnect with friends I've lost touch with. I read an article today that brought up some of the same points but in a much better way--here ya go!

3. Confession--I started watching Revenge last week and I'm already caught up on the most recent episode...I would feel more guilty about this if the show weren't only in its second season. But still...I can't say I'm proud. Haha

4. I was walking through town the other day and spotted this little guy. Gotta love the country :)

5. Super intrigued by what can only be described as the newest addition to our grocer's produce aisle.

6. Last weekend six of my friends came to visit!! I don't think I need to explain how needed that was...One of the interesting things that came up was a conversation one of the girls had with a Jewish rabbi who was speaking at an interfaith gathering. Apparently during the event, the Christian representative mentioned something about Catholics praying for the conversion of Jews on Holy Thursday (or is it Good Friday...?). Anyway, the rabbi said that he insulted by that. My friend explained to him that we do it because we believe we have the fullness of the truth and we want others to have it as well. She said it's like parents praying that their children grow up to embrace their faith, too. And then he shared something we were all a little confused by. He said that he wouldn't want to encourage his kids to practice Judaism if they didn't want to, even though he wholeheartedly believed it was the right religion. Hmmm...

7. Despite the fact that I haven't been helping out with Religious Ed classes since December (so many things I slacked on due to my internship... :-/), I like to think I made up for it by making it to our last class. Haha wishful thinking I'm sure. Though my guilt lessened slightly when I found out that my co-teacher's mom ended up taking over the class because M didn't have time to teach either...but she was there Wednesday too! Two of the kids acknowledged my re-appearance with a hug, while the rest didn't seem to remember me every being there in the first place. Perhaps that's why none of them listened to a word either of us said the entire time. They make look cute but they sure know how to push buttons.

Did I just hear my phone buzz??

Nope...that was just the TV playing tricks on me.

I feel like there's some sort of reference I'm not getting here...see Jen. And now see Erica. (Just to be clear, I do not mean that I've missed the whole hurricane-hitting-the-east-coast disaster. We may live out in the boonies, but I still get TV and internet. I'm talkin' bout the title. Pure coincidence? I'm leaning toward no. So fill a sister in!)

Completely off topic (wait, have I established a topic yet...?), but 30 Rock is on in the background and Jenna just said, "There's no 'I' or 'me' in America." Liz is standing behind her, shaking her head, and mouthing, "there's both..." Baha!

I had the opportunity to babysit on Sunday. At one point, I asked the little 3 year old if she wanted some fruit. She replied, "No. But thanks for asking." Too cute :)

And now for the meat and potatoes of this post. I probably should have decided what that was going to be before I started typing...hmmm...this very bright white page is not inspiring at all. I could probably spend some more time droning on about friendship woes, buuuut let's see if we can come up with anything else first. Got it!

Things I have to think about at home that never crossed my mind at school:

1. I've got a little less than a quarter tank of gas left. Better fill up before I go home or I may not make it home and back to the gas station since the nearest one is 20ish minutes away.

2. I'm hungry. Order a pizza you say? I can't--no one delivers out here.

3. How many MB of data does watching this YouTube video use? (and the answer is always 'how the heck would I even go about figuring that out??) Yeah....unlimited high speed internet doesn't exist out here so no catching up on TV shows on Hulu or watching that funny/cute/horrifying video making it's way around Facebook. Apparently Comcast doesn't think it's worth their time or effort.

4. I wonder which church has mass today. There are 3 Catholic churches within a 7 mile radius but none of them have mass every day.

5. I better make a list of every single errand I need to run because I won't be going back into civilization for a few days.

6. How long has it been since I've actually talked to someone? (At one point, I think it was 3 days because my mom was gone for the weekend and I didn't have anywhere to go. I finally broke the fast by talking to the girl working the Dairy Queen drive-thru...)

7. If I sit on the edge of the chair with the phone tilted at a 34 degree angle on the right arm, I get one bar of signal. However, I lose it if I switch to the left arm.

8. I wonder if this light breeze is going to knock our satellite TV out like it did last week.

9. As we're baking cookies, "oh shoot we're out of butter!" "Well, put the partially made dough in the fridge and we'll finish it tomorrow after we go grocery shopping."

10. You mean I can just leave my clothes in the washer or dryer and no one will move them?? Or if they do, they'll move them to the proper place?? (aka the dryer or my bed :D)

11. Where are all the other 20somethings?!

As always, thank you for not judging the randomness that is my thought process and have a wonderful night :) Oh! And sorry for the lack of pictures lately--can't risk going over our allotted data usage again. I'll try and steal some internet from Barnes and Noble the next time I'm there ;)